Issue Eight April 2017 (Poetry, Fiction & Art) SONIC BOOM
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SONIC BOOM ... for writing that explodes Issue eight April 2017 (Poetry, Fiction & Art) SONIC BOOM …for writing that explodes Issue Eight April 2017 (Poetry, Fiction & Art) Founder/Chief Editor: Shloka Shankar Poetry Editor: Shobhana Kumar Webmaster: Dwarakanathan Ravi Proofreader: Dishika Iyer Cover Art: ‘Five Birds’ by Phil Openshaw Copyright © Sonic Boom 2017 All rights revert to the authors/artists upon publication. For re-prints in future, please credit Sonic Boom as the original publisher. Works may not be reproduced in any manner or form without prior consent from the individual artists. http://sonicboomjournal.wixsite.com/sonicboom CONTENTS EDITORIAL 5 THE POETRY SHACK 6-17 The Year of the Dragon by Amber D. Tran 7 Underwater attraction by Eddie Donoghue 8 Theodicy by Gary Glauber 9 What Is Death? by Jennifer Met 10 A Sonnet from 555 by John Lowther 11 Story by Matt Dennison 12-13 Painting Diego’s Feet by P. C. Vandall 14 Pair of Dice by Robert Beveridge 15 Shopping for Pomelos at Central Market on Chinese New Year by Robert Flinn 16 Ida Sessions, Method Actress by Todd Mercer 17 PAPER LANTERNS 18-25 Michael Stinson Helen Buckingham Jay Friedenberg William Scott Galasso Ben Moeller-Gaa 19 Hansha Teki Marietta McGregor Elmedin Kadric Helen Buckingham Marianne Paul 20 David J. Kelly Nika Johannes S. H. Bjerg Christina Sng S. M. Kozubek Billy Antonio 21 Gabriel Bates Johannes S. H. Bjerg Hansha Teki Tom Montag David J. Kelly 22 Michael Dylan Welch Maeve O’Sullivan Elmedin Kadric Susan Beth Furst Gregory Longenecker Robert Kingston 23 Elmedin Kadric Marilyn Fleming Gabriel Bates Jennifer Hambrick Hansha Teki 24 Maria Corado Mark Gilbert Jennifer Hambrick Peter Jastermsky Susan Burch Marianne Paul 25 FICTION 26-31 Kenosis by Hansha Teki 27 Crowd Control by Jennifer Hernandez 28 A Discussion in Form by Jennifer Met 29 Keyholes by Johannes S. H. Bjerg 30 I'll Eat Your Angst by Kyle Hemmings 31 VISUAL ART 32-53 Break Sky by Kyle Hemmings 33 NYC 59th St Bridge by John McCluskey 34 Cubism by Olivier Schopfer 35 Battery Park I by Kyle Hemmings 36 NYC 44th St Construction by John McCluskey 37 Summer’s End by Olivier Schopfer 38 A book of stories by Phil Openshaw 39 Haiga by Marianne Paul 40 Psychasthenia by Pragya Vashishtha 41 night wind by Nika 42 Netherworld by Dawn Nelson Wardrope 43 Unsubmersible by Pragya Vashishtha 44 Tanka art by Leslie Bamford 45 The Wordsmith by Dawn Nelson Wardrope 46 G O by Andrew Topel and Diane Keys 47 Glitchasemic 6468 by Marco Giovenale 48 Shirtfog by John M. Bennett 49 duet in G major by Andrew Topel and Diane Keys 50 Other As Explored through Rorschach Metaphor and Simile by Jennifer Met 51 melting sea ice by Debbie Strange 52 Ratnasambhava by Gregory Autry Wallace 53 CONTRIBUTORS 54-58 EDITORIAL Every four months we issue out a call for submissions in the hopes of receiving some knockout work, and every single time, we have been blown away by the talent out there. It is an extremely humbling process to sift through hundreds of submissions and find the gems that will go into our little treasure-trove. Issue Eight has been no different. Just when we begin to think it can’t get any better than the previous issue, you prove us wrong. A happy kind of wrong, that is. We have curated some of the most brilliant pieces that showcase each artist’s unique voice, style of writing, and the sheer power to engage our dear readers. As always, we have attempted to deliver a little something for everyone in this issue. The Poetry Shack features exemplary experimental poetry from both established and newer voices, while the Paper Lanterns section showcases a dash and sprinkling of freshness in the form of haiku, senryu, tanka, and our first cherita. The Fiction section contains a curious combination of hybrids, haibun, and minimalist writing. And to round it all off, the Visual Art section brings together urban landscapes, visual poetry, and artwork in a variety of media. We would like to thank our contributors for all their support and for giving us the honour of featuring their work. So, dig in, already! - Shloka Shankar Sonic Boom 5 THE POETRY SHACK The Year of the Dragon By Amber D. Tran My mother’s history is elastic. A branded antiquity with teeth. Fostered under thick, freckled skin. She waits in kaleidoscopic postures. Sonic Boom 7 Underwater attraction By Eddie Donoghue underwater attraction— the proximity of sunken things, how we drift & roll-around blanketing parts of each-other too tired to be —never close enough, only fluid interaction of retinue, the next increment of survival cruel & translucent, a small window perhaps but through which still so un- explored this choreography shifts with the whim of glowing rocks (—) playing with the idea of depths managing the constancy of hunger Sonic Boom 8 Theodicy By Gary Glauber Curious to a fault, she has needs: geographical, historical, political. A tall desire to fix & amend inexorably. She signs petitions, joins fifth column, learns to echo sentiments old books proclaimed with made-up names & secret strategies. Grows a unilateral heart to salve the beating. Anything now to quell lies of conquest, caress hardened future with tenderest past. She’ll watch waves breaking this border derision like reasons expanding, husk shorn to seed. A silvery gown, an embroidered veil, & a hatful of questions. Handwritten index cards record the pilgrim’s journey. She knows no answers except to gather together, united in grateful isolation. Sonic Boom 9 What Is Death? By Jennifer Met my mother shields too young eyes— a curtain of snow (ghostly) white upon white but all along we knew the shape of the mailbox—the trees (ghosts) of dropped pine cones underfoot— the earth uneven cracking turning ankles (ghostly) and all along we knew the shape of gravestones—of winter Sonic Boom 10 A Sonnet from 555 By John Lowther I’m expressing my hatred of you through abstract art. The picture is definitely in my eye, but I am also in the picture. Simple subject, yet somehow visually pleasing—to me at least. It belongs in the clawed embrace of the undead amphetamine god. Because it annoys me. Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Of course, disavowal is a part of what is in play. It may be that, sooner or later, it all blows apart. This strikes me as particularly useful and urgent today. It's a cold universe. Sweet not thingness. Note: These 555 sonnets are made with found lines and precise measures, a database and text analytic software. I crunched Shakespeare’s sonnets for word, syllable and character averages and these are my new measures. The lines’ oddities are their own, the arrangement is mine. After the text analytics and data entry, many ways of assembling are found. I hold to the turn (when I think of it) and that sonnets are poems of a certain size, but little more. Something in excess of the lines pass through, it’s that I’m chasing. Sonic Boom 11 Story By Matt Dennison 1. But if I told you a story let me tell you a story settle down warm— tell me where to go what to do but this is not it is not the story and the lost poem of mother wandering in the fumbling snow is lost. 2. Bundled up overcoat men's boots dark hat and I cannot follow. Black snow, occasional horses and no release from this world. 3. Wandering lost away from me in the white tooth snow I would find you if I could and carry you within my mittened hands to the fire. 4. I think it was confusion kept us quiet, silent as rain in a self-held mind. Sonic Boom 12 Clutch tight we did our ghostly selves to doll-cloth hearts while the storm raged on. (Looking out the window: dry-lightning bed-clothes, fingers curled over the sill, transfixed by the distance within.) 5. Let us take it back, realize the path of evil for what it is: coeval. Cease to be murderous; return. The professional of death, minister to failure, allows my witness of concern, of touch near death's pure crime: muddy, vivid astonishment of love. 6. Human effort: the most God allowed. I stare. Did they stare at me? 7. O I, O we could have been large. Sonic Boom 13 Painting Diego’s Feet By P. C. Vandall Feet, why do I want them if I have wings to fly? – Frida Kahlo In the mourning, the trees are silent, the branches bare as feet. She takes pains to wash them, polishing them with pumice, anointing them in oil. She is bent over him, her spine an iconic column crumbling down legs to the rubble where feet turn green as Spanish moss hanging down from the Hawthorne trees. She pictures him with Picasso’s cubist toes and plants her prickly pear heart beneath his sole. She paints oil on copper, grinds up pigments of parrots and canaries. He’s the stag in the woods, the wind taunting her, the earth thrumming between her thighs, calling her home like elephants trumpeting her ascent to the blue house in the Coyoacan sky. Sonic Boom 14 Pair of Dice (after Tadić) By Robert Beveridge You rolled two dice of obsidian onto the gameboard before you realized their sides were unmarked with numbers, scratches, pips. One landed nestled up against the dog you guided on the board. The other slid off the side of the table, hung suspended between game and floor.